


A Hobby for Cassandra

by loosingletters



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batfamily Feels, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Bruce Wayne loves gardening, Gen, Hobbies, Humor, I love that this family is so big but it makes tagging terrible, Jason Todd is a nerd, Slice of Life, no beta we die like real men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 08:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19808380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters
Summary: Cassandra doesn't have a hobby. Her family tries to help her find one.





	A Hobby for Cassandra

**Author's Note:**

> I have never written Cass before I hope I did her justice. I’m also European and have no idea how girl scouts work but I assume that since this is Gotham they’d be like the ones from Phineas and Ferb.  
> I got inspired by [doc-squash's art of girl scouts leader Cass](https://doc-squash.tumblr.com/post/186238450178/todays-lesson-with-scout-master-cass-stranger) so I wrote this for them.

Cassandra had tried out a multitude of hobbies ever since she had become part of the family. Martial arts had been the first one. It was something she knew and was familiar with and therein laid the problem. There was hardly any school in Gotham that could keep her on her toes and while sparring with her brothers was fun, Cassandra didn’t want her primary interaction with them to be violent. It took a while for her to understand why exactly she was so uncomfortable with martial arts being her hobby, but once she knew, she dropped it.

Duke and Steph led her to her next hobby: games, video games to be precise. Sitting between Steph and Duke, a bowl of popcorn or chips in her lap, she could spend hours watching them built up complicated stories and family dramas in Sims or chase each other for the first place in Mario Kart. She liked Steph’s laughter and Duke’s snarky comments, it made her feel like she was at home. Left alone though, the games didn’t quite catch her interest. They were fun and they were colorful, but they missed something, so Cassandra dropped those as well.

The next hobby Cassandra had stumbled upon, literally. Tim had left his old skateboard in the garden shed, and when Cassandra had been searching for a ball for Titus to play with, she found it. She had gone to Tim the same day and it hadn’t taken much, basically just the opportunity to get him away from some WE business, and he had grabbed his gear and taken her to the skate park. He showed her the basics first, and after she had learned those, taught her spins and jumps and tricks. It wasn’t exciting enough to stick as a full-time hobby, but Cassandra had never been a bike person, so a skateboard suited her quite well to get through downtown traffic.

After that, however, Dick and Barbara made it their personal mission to find a hobby for her and actually managed to find the one that stuck the most with Cassandra. On Dick’s day off, he picked her and Barbara up and drove them to a dance studio up in the Diamond District.

“They do everything from breakdance to ballet,” Dick explained. “So you can try out whatever you want.”

Dancing was fun. There were so many different disciplines to choose from, so many styles to try out and learn. Cassandra loved ballet, how it managed to look strong and graceful at the same time. And flamenco, that was a fun one as well, so full of energy and the way the skirts twirled around her ankles made her smile.

But then there were the days she couldn’t stand it, the days when the many hours practicing at the ballet bars reminded her too much of her training, where she couldn’t stop thinking about how this was just another way of trying to make her body better, improve her already impeccable balance.

Maybe someday in the future when she could go through a full patrol without reminding herself that she needed to hold back.

Meanwhile, Jason had picked up on the family’s quest and whisked Cassandra away for theatre performances every Wednesday. Sometimes Alfred came along, but most of the time they went by themselves. Cassandra wasn’t particularly fond of reading, never mind reading old books, but seeing a performance on stage was a totally different thing. The story wasn't just a couple words in a book, but light and music and performances, and on top of that, she got to watch Jason interact with the actors afterward. Seeing him talk animatedly, questioning them why they decided to interpret a specific line in that particular way – perhaps that was the best part of those evenings.

Alfred approached her pretty much at the same time as Jason. He called her every time he was about to bake something, which was quite often considering that every member of her family preferred a specific kind of biscuit and merely making one tray didn’t suffice. Baking was fun, even if Cassandra had a hard time getting the cookies or muffins or cakes out on time. But that was alright, she preferred eating them either way.

Bruce and Damian tackled her at the same time, in the exact same place. Cassandra had decided to study in the greenhouse and had stumbled upon the two. She had been aware that Bruce and Damian spent one afternoon together once a week. All of them had Designated Bat-Dad Afternoons, DBDA for short. This week Bruce was working on his most recent rose breed while Damian was painting the other flowers in the greenhouse. Bruce’s idea of gardening involved too much science for Cassandra’s tastes, and Damian’s painting wasn’t active enough. She enjoyed watching them though, just spending time with her family and exchanging light-hearted words.

Cassandra found her hobby on a sunny spring afternoon. Everyone had been out of the house, leaving only Steph and her, when the doorbell rang.

They opened the door and came face to face with three little girls, roughly ten years old. The tallest of them began to talk.

“Hello! We’re the Girl Scout Troop selling cookies in this area. Are you interested in buying some?”

Beside Cassandra, Steph flicked her fingers. “Right, Alfred told me you were coming. Hold up.”

Steph rushed away, only to return seconds later with a list, which she gave to the girl who had spoken beforehand.

“That’s our order. If you need more money to keep your group together, just shoot the email at the bottom a message, alright?”

The girls nodded and began to study the paper, their eyes getting wider with every line they read.

“Thank you!” They cheered and good-naturedly they said their good-byes.

“Who were they?” Cassandra asked as soon as Steph closed the door.

“Those are the last of the Gotham Girl Scouts,” Steph said. “I used to be a part of them, had to drop out though. They’re probably gonna dissolve this year if B doesn’t keep buying unhealthily large amounts of cookies. They don’t really get newcomers and they don’t have any troop leaders as well.”

Cassandra frowned. “Why not?”

Steph shrugged. “Guess it’s too old-school for kids these days. And who wants to let their kids walk around through Gotham alone? I mean, it used to be just mobsters, but now you have to worry about crazy villains as well.”

Right. It made a lot of sense that such an organization couldn’t thrive in Gotham, but Cassandra still thought it was sad. There must be something she could do, right?

Cassandra spent the rest of the week doing research until she could say that this was definitely something she was interested in trying out.

“Are you sure?” Bruce asked her when she handed him the application form.

Cassandra nodded. “Yes. They need help and I have time.”

Bruce smiled, soft and kind, and sat up straight. He didn’t have to say that he was proud of her out loud, Cassandra could read it as clear as day.

“Then I’ll see what I can do.”

Months later, Cassandra’s girls would not only have the best group room to meet in, but they’d also win the cookie sales and have the coolest self-defense badges.

And Cassandra spent her afternoons planning lessons, camping trips and crafts she could do with her troop.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear what you think!


End file.
